Explore Aegina

The Archaeological Museum of Aegina, founded in 1829 as the first state museum in Greece, stands at Kolona, the ancient acropolis on a headland just north of Aegina harbour. It shows pottery, figurines and inscriptions found on the island. The surrounding site, on the same ticket, keeps the single standing column of an Archaic temple of Apollo.

The Agios Nektarios Monastery, officially the Holy Trinity Monastery, is a convent of Orthodox nuns 6 km east of Aegina town. Nektarios of Aegina founded it in 1904 and lived here until his death in 1920; he was declared a saint in 1961, and his relics kept here draw pilgrims. Beside it stands the large modern church of Agios Nektarios.

Palaiochora is the abandoned medieval capital of Aegina, on a hill in the north of the island above the Agios Nektarios Monastery. Islanders moved here from the coast to escape pirates and stayed until the early 19th century. Few houses remain, but 38 Byzantine and post-Byzantine churches survive on the slopes, many with wall paintings, below a ruined castle.

The Temple of Aphaia is a Doric temple of about 500 BC on a 160 m hill in the east of Aegina, about 13 km by road from the island's main port. It replaced an earlier temple destroyed by fire around 510 BC. Most of its pediment sculptures are in the Munich Glyptothek; a small collection on site shows finds and fragments from the sanctuary.